Welcome to the Church Health Team web page! We are glad you are here to learn more about the team and how you can help the congregation continue to grow in faith.

What is Natural Church Development (NCD)?

Natural Church Development is a process by which a congregation will evaluate its strengths and weaknesses in order to ensure the congregation is healthy and not simply numerical growth. The question this process hopes to answer is “How can this God-given growth potential be released”
(www.ncd-international.org)? The process should encourage creativity,
authenticity and diversity. Through the process the congregation should be able to put the Bible and its concepts into the center of our everyday
lives.

According to the International Natural Church Development website, the “churches that have done three or more NCD Surveys have increased their average growth rate by 51% between the first and the third survey.”

The NCD Process

The NCD process consists of five steps and should be extended over a period of time. The steps are: Prepare, Diagnose, Plan, Implement and Evaluate. The diagnosis process includes the use of a survey that evaluates eight quality characteristics of the church: Empowering Leadership, Gift-based Ministry, Passionate Spirituality, Effective Structures, Inspiring Worship Service, Holistic Small Groups, Need-oriented Evangelism and Loving Relationships.

The Goal of the Church Health Team

The goal of the Church Health Team is to navigate the congregation through the NCD process. NCD should be a process of continuous evaluation and therefore is ongoing.

Please feel free to reach out to any of these members with questions,
concerns or suggestions.

The process and deliverables of the initial committee is the following:

Research the NCD process and choose the appropriate evaluation tool
(survey). COMPLETE

Identify key, active members of the congregation to participate in
the survey. COMPLETE

– Administer the survey to participants. COMPLETE
– Evaluate survey results and prayerfully consider options to address
key areas of concern. IN PROGRESS
– Create an action and communications plan to share survey information
with staff, church council and the congregation as a whole.
– Develop suggested recommendations (1-3) to address the weakest area
identified by the survey.
– Begin work to implement the recommended changes, in collaboration
with necessary members, other committees or other parties according to the
recommendations
– Ensure a smooth transition to the next Church Health Team.

Please see the attached PPT presentation for information on the NCD process.
(This could be the first one we used)

What was the minimum factor for CV?
Through the survey process, it was determined that the minimum factor for
Christus Victor is PASSIONATE SPIRITUALITY. We conducted a series of open
forums to discuss why we believe this is our minimum factor. The
participants provided great feedback and voted. The top 5 reasons were
thought to be:
1. We are uncomfortable sharing our faith/praying around others.
2. We need guidance for how to develop/improve our individual
prayer/devotion life.
3. We are not involved in a small group, or we’re not getting enough out of
our participation/involvement.
4. We participate out of obligation rather than passionate service (we lack
a spiritual connection in/to our activities).
5. We find it difficult to talk to new people about our faith.

(Insert the Miniumum factor PPT)

Where we are today
Today the Church Health Team, and the CV congregation, are engaging in a
brainstorming process. WE NEED YOUR HELP!
Provide suggestions on what we can do to impact our miniumum factor:
PASSIONATE SPIRITUALITY. What specific actions can we take to address the
why’s outlined above?
PLEASE PROVIDE YOUR THOUGHTS BY OCTOBER 21st.

Suggestions are welcome via any one of the following means:
– Email us at churchhealth@christusvictor.org
– Drop your suggestions in the envelope found on the bulletin board outside
of the Art Room
– Give your suggestions to any member of the Church Health Team (Jason
Sprenger, Shane Colin, Scott Thureen, Matthew Kruetzmann, Jenny Case or
Jennifer Radke)